Background

• Dominguez was charged with burglary of a building in Action Pawn Shop.
• The State proved Dominguez and two accomplices entered during business hours and stole a gold bracelet from a jewelry counter case.
• The central issue at trial was whether the jewelry counter area was open to the public.
• Video and witnesses showed the back-of-counter area was restricted and not open to the public.
• The court later addressed whether the jewelry counter area constituted a portion of a building and, if so, whether it was not open to the public; the court also considered court-appointed attorney’s fees and modified the judgment accordingly.
• A nunc pro tunc judgment corrected the sentence from eighteen to twenty years, and the court sustained the sufficiency challenge to the attorney’s-fees order, deleting that portion.

Issues

Key Cases Cited

• Day v. State, 534 S.W.2d 681 (Tex.Crim.App. 1976) (enclosed structure must be building; structure not merely enclosed by something else)
• St. Julian v. State, 874 S.W.2d 669 (Tex.Crim.App. 1994) (whether mailroom is a portion of a building; open passageway negates portion designation)
• Williams v. State, 537 S.W.2d 936 (Tex.Crim.App. 1976) (open-to-public status depends on access restrictions, not mere open doors)
• Johnson v. State, 664 S.W.2d 420 (Tex.App.-Amarillo 1983) (example of a portion of a building within statute’s scope (supermarket pharmacy area))
• De Albuquerque v. State, 712 S.W.2d 809 (Tex.App.-Houston (1st Dist.) 1986) (analysis of building/portion-of-building concept)
• Villarreal v. State, 643 S.W.2d 790 (Tex.App.-San Antonio 1982) (shops within larger structure can be a building for burglary purposes)